female genital cutting – Rewirehttps://rewire.news
News, commentary, analysis and investigative reporting on reproductive and sexual health, rights and justice issues.Tue, 26 Sep 2017 20:04:40 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.8.2Eliminating Female Genital Mutilation—A Public Health and Cultural Perspectivehttps://rewire.news/article/2013/02/11/international-day-zero-tolerance-eliminating-female-genital-mutilation-public-h/
https://rewire.news/article/2013/02/11/international-day-zero-tolerance-eliminating-female-genital-mutilation-public-h/#respondMon, 11 Feb 2013 17:51:26 +0000http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2013/02/11/international-day-zero-tolerance-eliminating-female-genital-mutilation-public-h/Culture is one of the most sensitive aspects of people’s lives, particularly as it relates to sexual and reproductive behavior, attitudes, and norms. Therefore, when we talk about female circumcision (I still cannot call it mutilation), we should always look at this cultural practice as one of many good and bad things that happen to women universally, and not only to African women but women worldwide.

I was circumcised when I was eighty days old, as is the tradition in Ethiopia. My sister was three. My mother had tried to spare us, but her aunt discovered that we were not circumcised and took it upon herself to have us circumcised.

Years later, I asked my aunt why she did it. Her response was not defensive. On the contrary, she responded very matter-of-fact: My sister and I were circumcised so that we could find a husband, have children, and become women. This is the cultural ideology that most Ethiopian women believed at that time, and unfortunately, that many still adhere to in the 21st century—an ideology and practice that is detrimental to a woman’s health.

As a person working in the area of public health, I believe that the eradication of female circumcision is a priority for girls in Africa. In the 1980s, the issue of female circumcision was brought to light in the western world. As a young African feminist, I wrote and argued for not using the term mutilation when describing female circumcision. I argued this because I did not see my mother or my aunt as people who mutilated me, but as people who allowed the act to be performed out of ignorance, love, and compelling cultural traditions. They felt that for me to be a woman, to have children, and to find a husband, I had to undergo this operation. During that time, the sensationalism around these issues also made feminists and pan-Africanists like me believe that a double standard was being used in defining, denying, and indicting our culture.This is precisely why I pose this food for thought regarding the use of the term mutilation: from my cultural lens, for example, a woman who gets breast implants belongs to a culture that glorifies a woman’s youth and beauty in such a way that it forces some women to resort to operations – like breast augmentation – that are not necessary. But then again, it is hardly ever said that a woman mutilates herself when she gets breast implants …

Culture is one of the most sensitive aspects of people’s lives, particularly as it relates to sexual and reproductive behavior, attitudes, and norms.

Therefore, when we talk about female circumcision (I still cannot call it mutilation), we should always look at this cultural practice as one of many good and bad things that happen to women universally, and not only to African women but women worldwide. The manifestations of this culture are varied and the interpretation we give to each of them should be informed by a respect to how people view their culture and that of others.

While I vehemently fight for the elimination of this culture, as one who has been a victim of it and a public health professional, I challenge readers and those of us working to eradicate this practice to view it within the larger framework of how women suffer from different forms of oppression in the name of culture throughout the world – as the recent United Nations ban on Female Genital “Mutilation” articulates. The ban is a significant milestone towards the ending of harmful practices and violations that constitute serious threats to the health of women and girls. It is a very important step to bringing about cultural and attitudinal change: we cannot hide behind our cultural traditions to defend practices that harm women. On the other hand, we also cannot judge and indict people who in the name of culture perform acts out of ignorance and a lack of understanding of the harm such practices have on women.

As we commemorate International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital “Mutilation”/Cutting, we must continue to work toward eradicating the practice—even as we push toward culturally appropriate descriptions and intervention—and improving the health of women and girls in all parts of the world.

Foreign Policy has a special report on women and foreign policy this month, or “The Sex Issue,” as they’ve called it. It features key commentary and insights on key women leaders, ongoing barriers to women’s leadership, and a particular focus on women in the Arab world. A provocative piece by Mona Eltahawy bluntly pointed to the hostility of men and society toward women in the Arab world (“Why Do They Hate Us?”). There were some misses, like “The Most Powerful Women You’ve Never Heard Of” list, which a) included leaders most people have (and should have) heard of and b) included women that FP itself regularly features (Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala!?Helen Clark!?). One winner was the misogyny Mad Libs, which included gems like: The glass ceiling will be broken when… “There is a female U.S. president, a female secretary-general of the United Nations, and a female World Bank president at the same time.” —Mimoza Kusari-Lila. While the report is a refreshing departure from the male-dominated stodge of FP, why must it lean so far in the direction of funny, provocative, and sexy? Is it that we assume “women in foreign policy” won’t be taken seriously, so we treat it with irreverence from the start? It’s not clear that there was all that much thought behind the assembly of the report, but it’s still a win that FP would highlight such key components of what’s a critical and growing issue: the role that women play in shaping and leading our world. Contrary to popular belief, feminists do have a sense of humor but we also like intelligent humor. That is, the accompanying photo to the piece, “The FP Survey: Women in Politics,” of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton winking is a bit of a fail. Via Foreign Policy.

The Guardianreports on a BBC investigation has uncovered evidence of clandestine and forced sterilization in Uzbekistan. Because of the tense political situation in Uzbekistan, where dissent is not tolerated (the Human Rights Watch office there was shut down last year), all interviewees were anonymous. One gynecologist reported he was pressured to meet a monthly “sterilization quota” of four women. Coerced sterilization can be about a lot of things, but in Uzbekistan, as one surgeon explained, it seems to be a manipulation of women’s bodies and rights for the sake of broader national progress on health indicators: “It’s a simple formula – fewer women give birth, fewer of them die.” In response to the investigation, the Uzbek Government says the allegations “have nothing to do with reality,” but it sadly we know all too well the reality that most women face. In societies where freedom and rights are not supported, it is often women’s rights – and their bodies – that suffer most. Via The Guardian.

India: Muslim Women Want Marriage Reform

In an article on the struggles of Indian Muslim women navigating marriage and divorce, the New York Timesreports on the gaps in rights that exist under a plural legal system. The Indian constitution grants women and men equal rights, but for many Muslim men and women, Islamic law trumps that. Under some interpretations, a man’s declaration of “I divorce you” three times is equivalent to a binding split, and the woman has almost no legal rights of her own. To bridge that gap in rights, Muslim women’s advocates in the country have been pushing for a codification of the Indian legal system within the framework of the Koran itself, which they say does not dictate patriarchy (it is, rather, the conservative interpretations of the Koran that place women in peril at every turn). It’s a push to make marriage more about legality and less about culture and religion, all with the hopes of safeguarding women. The issue has also raised the question of who Muslim clerics – who interpret and define the law as it is lived – should actually speak for among the Muslim population (hint, probably not women). Via New York Times.

Welcome to our new Weekly Global Reproductive Justice Roundup! Each week, reporter Jessica Mack will summarize reproductive and sexual health and justice news from around the world. We will still report in depth on some of these stories, but we want to make sure you get a sense of the rest and the best.

In Egypt, Women’s Football V. ‘Virginity Tests’Sahar El-Hawary is North Africa’s first female referee, and is pioneering female football in Egypt. Al Jazeera profiled her story and work this month as part of their wonderful Africa on the Move series, which features uplifting stories from across the continent. The piece is beautifully done and well worth the watch. El-Hawary grew up with brothers and a father who were rabid football fans, and dreamed of playing and coaching herself. Two decades ago she began training a girls’ team in the secrecy of her own home, and today she has helped to set up girls teams in almost every region of the country. She recruits female players, coaches and referees, and in the process is helping undo a male-dominated sport and culture. Her son Omar helps manages the team. “Women can change the structure of societies in these areas,” she says. Here’s a video of one girls team playing back in 2007, which is pretty bad ass.

Meanwhile, women in Egypt are facing other setbacks. Last week a military court acquitted an army doctor accused of conducting forced “virginity tests” on female protesters last year. Activist Samira Ibrahim, who initially brought the charges, said the entire trial and resulting acquittal was “a joke, a theatre.” Ibrahim and other female detainees had alleged that military personnel sexually assaulted, harassed, and abused them in various grotesque ways – including “testing” to see whether they were virgins. (Let’s remember that penetration by any object without consent is rape, folks.) In response, one Army general deflected: “We didn’t want them to say we had sexually assaulted or raped them, so we wanted to prove that they weren’t virgins in the first place.” Wow, just wow. Via Al Jazeera and VOA.

Thank You, Condoms: South Africa’s New HIV/AIDS Infections Plummet South Africa, where 17 percent of adults ages 15 to 49 are HIV-positive, shoulders a heavy AIDS burden, but the rate of new infections in the country has dropped dramatically in the last decade. A study released last month suggests that this is largely due to increased condom use. In 2009, 75 percent of young South African men reported condom use at their last sexual encounter, compared to just 20 percent in 1999. It’s a significant revelation that such a simple and widely available tool can be so effective, given some setbacks and delays with other prevention options. Lack of condom use has been attributed to cultural attitudes toward masculinity, perceptions of promiscuity, and taboos about sex more broadly, but that is changing and national leadership on this issue has stepped way up. Remember when the Pope claimed that condoms would not help Africa’s AIDS crisis? Still a ways to go, but it’s looking like he was wrong. Via Economist.

A New Snapshot of (Positive) Sex Work in Thailand A new report by the Empower Foundation, a sex workers’ rights group in Thailand, offers a more nuanced picture of the country’s sex work industry – a well-developed, perhaps world-famous, and now increasingly legitimate sector for many. Hit & Run: Sex Workers’ Research on Anti-trafficking in Thailand is the result of a year-long survey implemented by sex workers among sex workers, to uncover the state of the industry. The report finds that sex workers are better off and better connected than many thought. Sex workers have access to hi-tech tools (e.g. smart phones) and use them to stay connected and safe; migration is part of the culture of sex work, and often helpful/voluntary (i.e. sex ‘trade’ not ‘trafficking’); and the average sex worker makes enough money to comfortably take care of his/her family. Of course it’s not positive all the time for everyone. But anti-trafficking groups and initiatives in Southeast Asia are a dime a dozen with many ineffective, oppressive, or all together useless. Everyone from Nicholas Kristof to Ashton Kutcher is trying to “save” girls and women and while these efforts may be well-meaning they tend to erase critical nuances in the issue and drown out the voices and agencies of sex workers themselves. “There are more women in the Thai sex industry being abused by anti-trafficking practices than there are women exploited by traffickers,” Empower director Chantawipa Apisuk said. Via Nation Multimedia.

Story on Genital Cutting in Liberia Draws Threats A Liberian journalist who published a piece on the persistence of female genital cutting in the Sande tradition this week has received threats to her wellbing. Mae Azango, a fellow for New Narratives and the Pulitzer Center, said that just days after her piece was published she received phone messages threatening to injure her for speaking out. Azango has not been sleeping at her house since. Signaling just how sensitive this issue is, Azango’s interview subject requested a pseudonym as protection for even speaking about her experience with the practice. As she point out, Liberia is one of five countries in Africa still holding on to the practice and little data exists to depict its magnitude. Other countries, including regional neighbor Senegal, have been open about the challenges in uprooting the practice but have become well-known for their rapid abandonment of the practice. It does beg the question though: why has this issue remained so rooted and clandestine in Liberia? Why, especially, when the country is under the tenure of Africa’s first female president (now in her second term) Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who won a Nobel Peace Prize last year along with her country-woman (and fellow activist!) Leymah Gbowee. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) yesterday issued a letter to President Johnson-Sirleaf requesting formal protection for Azango. Via CPJ.

Drama Series in Kenya Takes on Sexual Taboos

Shuga: Love, Sex, Money is a six-part drama series based in Nairobi, Kenya and looks pretty awesome. It’s racy, soap operatic, filled with good-looking and talented African actors, and meant to address persistent health and social taboos that have gone unaddressed for too long. A joint effort by MTV, the Partnership for an HIV-Free Generation, UNICEF and others, the series looks at rape, transactional sex, and other issues young people are navigating without many resources. It will be shown in 70 countries around the world. The series is also being used in youth HIV prevention and education programs, and has an accompanying toolkit to facilitate discussions and encourage status knowledge and testing. You can join discussions of “Shuga” online here. Via Humanosphere.

]]>A Moratorium on Mutilation: Community Organizations Find Their Own Path To Ending a Dangerous Practicehttps://rewire.news/article/2012/02/06/moratorium-on-mutilation/
Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:04:42 +0000While the UN is still celebrating International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation, Tostan, a global rights and health organization, and others are enjoying “International Female Genital Cutting Abandonment Day.” The difference in phrasing is subtle, but the significance is huge.

Yesterday was International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), a UN-sponsored day dedicated to raising awareness of the thousands year-old practice whereby a girl or woman’s genitals are cut. The WHO estimates that about 140 million women worldwide are currently living with the consequences of FGM. It’s considered by many to be harmful to a woman’s health and rights, as consent is rarely involved and the procedure is rarely done in hygienic settings.

The practice is often described in the most cringe-worthy and heart string-pulling ways (think legs tied down, shards of glass cutting at a young girl’s genitals, for example) and has roots that are centuries old and spread round the world. The act is not religiously based – though it’s often (mistakenly) attributed to or equated with Islam – but rather based in historical cultural concepts of women’s worth and value.

Notably, the most successful campaign in history to end FGM is run by a global organization called Tostan, whose efforts in Senegal to support community-led resistance to the practice have hinged on refraining from paternalistic tsk-tsking of the practice. They don’t call it FGM, but rather FGC – female genital “cutting” – a term just as accurate but devoid of judgment that could put community members, deeply attached to the practice, off. (It is also sometimes called female circumcision.)

While the UN is still celebrating zero tolerance on FGM, Tostan and many others are enjoying “International FGC Abandonment Day.” The difference in phrasing is subtle, but the significance is huge. Rather than approaching FGC as a cultural cancer that must be eradicated, Tostan and others have approached it as a choice that can be changed, or “abandoned,” as new figures, facts, and attitudes come to light. Agency is protected and the power of community is respected. The idea is that this must happen at the grassroots level, driven by the community themselves.

Through an education initiative that places FGC in the context of broader health and human rights, Tostan has engendered one individual advocate after another, who have gone on to organize themselves in consensus to abandon the practice. In just about a decade, there has been major headway in Senegal to disavow the practice, with a domino effect that keeps going.

While community education efforts have been hugely successful, global media has played a surprisingly central role in magnifying its effects. In a her recent book, “Kill the Messenger: The Media’s Role in the Fate of the World,” Maria Armoudian explores a number of case studies from around the world, in which media has played an integral role in driving social change. In particular, Armoudian highlights the importance of global media coverage in complementing Tostan’s work.

Coverage of FGC has broadened and diversified from simply horror stories about the practice to depictions of what is working. This is important. Armoudian writes that while,

“Media coverage alone may not have attained the same results in such a short period of time […] the media were essential for three critical reasons: they created awareness about the bigger concepts; they lifted the issue from secrecy; and they associated FGC’s end with important goals that protected girls and advanced human rights. […] By demonstrating the growing acceptance of FGC’s renunciation, mass media coverage prevented the social shunning of a people accepting change.”

This last point is critical. The stigma against not having your daughter cut – that she would be unclean, unattractive, or un-marriageable, is a collective one that is refracted through communities. When individuals are given the space to decide not to participate in FGC, and then see that choice echoed elsewhere, the validation is powerful.

Global media coverage of successful anti-FGC efforts such as that of Tostan in Senegal wield cross-cultural power as communities around the world start similar movements. While the practice is often widely discussed as an “African problem,” far less attention has been paid to is as it exists in countries like Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan and across the Middle East, and very little research on it there exists.

Efforts there to organize renunciation are burgeoning, with the first-ever conference on FGC in the Middle East took place in Lebanon last month. The meeting’s goal was to establish an anti-FGC network and begin developing a strategy for its abandonment. However, while the Arab Spring could provide space for new discussions and new research, a recent article from the Stonegate Institute suggests the converse: “with the political ascendancy in Egypt of the Muslim Brotherhood, with which Al-Qaradawi has been associated, there is a real danger that FGM will increase as a feature of the ostensible “re-Islamisation” of Egypt.”

Anti-FGC efforts in the Middle East may be uphill, but then again, when is it ever easy to change cultural beliefs and attitudes? It will be interesting to see whether any lessons learned from Tostan’s successes or more matured anti-FGC efforts elsewhere in Africa provide a road map for nascent efforts in the Middle East.

In the meantime, the International Day of Zero Tolerance is providing a megaphone for global rights groups to call for tougher anti-FGC laws. Yet given Tostan’s wild success, deeply community-rooted in its nature, it is unclear whether a focus on national laws is the fastest way forward. After all, child marriage is outlawed in India though still widely practiced. While anti-FGC laws would send a powerful and clear message that female genital cutting is wrong, it is the community that has the power to actually change the reality.

]]>“This One Will Not Be Cut:” How A Movement to End Female Genital Mutilation is Spreading Through Senegalhttps://rewire.news/article/2011/10/17/this-one-will-not-be-cut-how-a-movement-to-end-female-genital-mutilation-is-spreading-through-senegal/
Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:21:11 +0000A campaign to eradicate female genital mutilation has taken off in Senegal. What if, with the incredibly small sums of money needed by the United Nations campaign to fund these strategies across a continent, we could end FGM within the next ten to 15 years? Both UNICEF and UNFPA work to end FGM, though the GOP-led House of Representatives is seeking to eliminate funding for both.

]]>Across Africa, according to the World Health Organization an estimated 92 million girls and women have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), a procedure that involves removing all or part of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. FGM, a traditional practice rooted in custom and beliefs about female “purity” may include:

Clitoridectomy: partial or total removal of the clitoris (a small, sensitive and erectile part of the female genitals) and, in very rare cases, only the prepuce (the fold of skin surrounding the clitoris).

Excision: partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora (the labia are “the lips” that surround the vagina).

Infibulation: narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal. The seal is formed by cutting and repositioning the inner, or outer, labia, with or without removal of the clitoris.

Other: all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, e.g. pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterizing the genital area.

FGM is performed on girls ranging from infancy to age 15. FGM is a human rights abuse. It has no health benefits, and it harms girls and women in many ways. It involves removing and damaging healthy and normal female genital tissue, and interferes with the natural functions of girls’ and women’s bodies. There are both immediate and long-term implications for women and girls who have undergone the procedure.

FGM has persisted in many countries because of deeply held beliefs about controlling female sexuality, female “purity,” and marriageability of women.

But now, as Celia Dugger reports in the New York Times, efforts to end FGM seem to have reached a tipping point, at least in the country of Senegal where more than 5,000 Senegalese villages have joined a growing movement to end the practice.

It’s a cultural and generational change that has built on persistent investments in educating village leaders and families about the harms caused by FGM. Dugger writes:

The change is happening without the billions of dollars that have poured into other global health priorities throughout the developing world in recent years. Even after campaigning against genital cutting for years, the United Nations has raised less than half the $44 million it set as the goal.

In Senegal, writes Dugger, “Tostan, a group whose name means “breakthrough” in Wolof, Senegal’s dominant language, has had a major impact with an education program that seeks to build consensus, African-style, on the dangers of the practice, while being careful not to denounce it as barbaric as Western activists have been prone to do. Senegal’s Parliament officially banned the practice over a decade ago, and the government has been very supportive of Tostan’s efforts.”

“Before you would never even dare to discuss this,” said Mamadou Dia, governor of the Kolda region where this village is located. “It was taboo. Now you have thousands of people coming to abandon it.”

Over the past 15 years, the drive to end the practice has gained such momentum, writes Dugger, “that a majority of Senegalese villages where genital cutting was commonplace have committed to stop it.”

Now, “[w]ith too few resources to replicate Tostan’s health and human rights classes across Africa, Nafissatou Diop, who coordinates the United Nations-led campaign to end the practice, is looking for quicker, cheaper strategies to change social conventions on cutting. Tostan has pursued an ambitious effort here with support from Unicef and others, but its two- to three-year program costs about $21,000 per village — a substantial sum considering the countless villages that continue the practice.”

“The program is transformative, and I love that as an African woman,” said Ms. Diop, who is Senegalese, “but we need to move faster.”

What if, with the incredibly small sums of money needed by the United Nations campaign to fund these strategies across a continent, we could end FGM within the next ten to 15 years? Both UNICEF and UNFPA work to end FGM, though the GOP-led House of Representatives is seeking to eliminate funding for both.